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Writer pay rates

There have been two stories going around recently, about writers and publishing. The first was the whole harlequin vanity press. The more recent story has to do with pay rates for different markets.

I’m a beginning writer. I have submitted a single story to the Tesseracts 14 anthology, which pays $50 for stories under 1500 words, rising to $100 for 5000 words. That works out to 3 cents a word for low word-count stories, and 2 cents a word for longer stories. This doesn’t meet SFWA requirements for a pro market — although it would have prior to 2004 — but it’s certainly better than the 1/5 of a cent per word that Black Matrix is offering.

The fact that Tesseracts is a well respected anthology of Canadian imaginative literature (SF/F/H etc) year is great. The editors of the anthology this year are John Robert Colombo, a much respected editor of Canadiana, and Brett Alexander Savory, publisher of ChiZine publications. I believe that having a publication in Tesseracts would enhance my career. Do I think this particular story will make it? I’ll find out soon, as they have a short reading period, but I’ll likely receive my first rejection.

As Jim C. Hines notes, “most of us suck when we’re new”. Rejection can be horrible, but it’s also a reason to get better. It’s one of those Calvin and Hobbes “character building” exercises. I would rather submit a reasonably good story and have it rejected than submit crap that does get published. Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to seeing my name in print someday, but I’m not looking for fast self-validation.

One thing that Scalzi notes, but which has been overlooked in some cases, is that there is a difference between “for the love, no one is making money” publications, and businesses launching multiple magazines, as well as two book lines.

Shaun Duke has thrown his two bits in. Small markets, such as the Survival by Storytelling magazine, are perfectly justified in their pay scale: a portion of royalties only. In fact, from their magazine’s submission guidelines, 2/3 of all profit goes to the issue’s contributors, while the remaining third goes to Young Writers Online. Duke isn’t making anything from this.

In regards to publishers such as Black Matrix, I can’t currently justify submitting a story to a for-profit company that pays so poorly. This is no longer a “for the love” market. Rachael Swirsky guest-blogged on Jeff VanderMeer’s blog about the value of certain publishing credits. I would have to agree with her, and with Cat Rambo, editor for Fantasy Magazine. Too many unknown credits on a cover letter are a possible sign that the author may have been underselling their work, and may be used to lower standards. As a slush reader, I have anecdotal evidence to support this.

Markets like this exist. They will likely continue to exist. The moral question here, is whether the publisher is making money without paying their writers adequately. What else do they offer? Why would an author submit to markets like this? I won’t, but others have and will. So long as they know what they’re getting into, that’s great.

Scalzi may have come across a little harsh. But really, when has he ever shown gentle softness and tact? This is the man who has published a Hugo-winning essay collection criticizing the hate mail he’s received. He may have seen a few more hits on his blog than usual from this incident, but he already has a big audience. Instead, he’s using his platform to call out a group that appears to be underpaying writers for profit. He’s trying to help the community out. It’s unfortunate that this comes across as an attack on all publications.

Jeff VanderMeer writes about goals in Booklife, suggesting that “many writers never progress in their careers — except in a shambling, two-steps-forward-one-step-back way — because they always focus on the moment, and the moment after that” (p 20). What does submitting to a market such as this accomplish for your long-term career goals, that submitting to a better paying market doesn’t? Maybe having to wait a little longer by submitting to multiple, more discriminating markets first might be worthwhile? After all, the story is written, you can start writing the next while shuffling the manuscript between markets. Writing and publishing books is a lengthy task. Use some discretion, and some patience.

New blog posts to this story include another Fantasy Magazine slush reader, and also now assistant editor, Molly Tanzer, which is full of fantastic advice.

Another post is from Nick Mamatas, a very “to the point” kind of response.

There has also been a followup to Rachael Swirsky’s posting on Jeff VanderMeer’s blog.

One thought on “Writer pay rates”

I agree with you about Scalzi–it is perfectly acceptable to call out for-profit markets like Black Matrix that exploit authors. Trying to bank off of the publish-or-perish anxieties of new writers trying to work their way up in the market is pretty shady.